Friday, March 2, 2018

Reboot - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Yarn Ply - Part 1

This series on Yarn Ply from 2016 continues to get a lot of traffic, mainly through google search. I'm going to rerun it over the next month for those of you who are new to my blog. This post includes some updates as the single ply yarn I mentioned now has its pattern published. Also a reminder, there is a topic index at the top of the page if you are looking for older posts.

First for clarity, a definition from knitting about.com. "Yarn purchased from yarn stores or from individual yarn makers comes
in a lot of different styles and configurations, but there are some
basics that usually hold true, including the fact that yarn is typically
made up of plies, or should I say at least one "ply." Plies
are
the individual strands of yarn that are worked together to form a plied
yarn. A single strand being sold or worked with on it's own isn't
usually called a ply, though, it's known as a single, because calling it
a one-ply yarn doesn't make much sense. Multiple plies can be used to
create a knitting yarn, and while some countries use the number of plies
as a shorthand for the thickness of the yarn (a two-ply would be
thinner than an eight-ply, for instance), in most cases the number of
plies has nothing to do with the thickness
of the finished yarn. You can have a very bulky two-ply yarn or an
extremely thin four-ply yarn depending on how the individual singles
were produced.To ply yarn, individual singles are spun together with the twist worked
in the opposite direction from how the singles were spun. This gives the
yarn much more strength, durability and consistency than is seen in a
singles yarn."

Tofurther confuse yarn novices we refer to the thickness of yarn as weight and we refer to the weight of the yarn put up. A "put up" is the way in which the yarn is presented for sale, usually skeins or balls.The
ply system of yarn weight (thickness) was typically used in the U.K.,
Australia and New Zealand. Again,to confuse things even further there
were inconsistencies between countries. I've seen charts like this one
from LoveKnitting.com.

Here
in Canada we are dominated by the U.S. export market, so in the past we
often saw labels using one system or the other depending on where the
yarn was sourced.

Interestingly the U.S. Craft Council has also struggled with a naming system for weights. They started with a 1-5 numbering system which has grown to 0-7. Machine knitters also use adifferent system based on yardage per pound. This one comes from the use of yarn on cones.

I'm
currently working on a design for release this fall which uses a single
ply yarn of 100% wool. Of course, that got me thinking about the design
challenges of working with a single.

Yarn is created by taking fibre and twisting it into a continuous thread. Singles can, depending on the length of the source fibre, have problems holding together when knit. Some
fibres have short lengths and need more twists per inch to hold them
together. Fibres with longer lengths require less twist. More twist
leads to biasing when used in simple stocking stitch.You can test this
out with a large swatch. The easy fix is to use a textured stitch which
incorporates both knit and purl stitches.

Singles
also tend to be less consistent because plying can smooth
out some of the imperfections which are more easily seen in singles.
When knitting with them you'll come across thicker and thinner sections.
If the thin spots are of concern you can break the yarn, overlap and
rejoin by splicing with moisture and friction by rubbing them together
briskly while held between your palms. These yarns can appear soft and puffy. The lack of structure, can result in a yarn which has problems with pilling or
shedding. Before knitting, single-ply yarns appear to
have a smooth surface.The best description I've come across is to think
about the difference between a ponytail (single) and a
braid of hair (plied yarn). When knit up, singles tend to produce a
cohesive, solid fabric which is now much stronger in nature.

Visually
these yarns create stitches which are very smooth in nature. The
roundness of the strand avoids the shadows which are created by multiple
plies. This is especially apparent in stocking stitch.

Since
there's very little twist to
hold the fibers of a single together avoid tugging too hard on the yarn.
Tight knitters or those who put a lot of tension on the yarn may find
them harder to work with for this reason. Smoother needles will also
help in avoiding snagging the yarn. Some knitters will get better results with a smaller needle size for added structure to avoid pilling. They do lack some of the strength and durability of plied
yarns. Due to less twist
to hold the fibers together, singles can separate and grow thin in garment areas that suffer from friction.

Garments
knit from the heavier weight singles tend to feel dense and are often
very warm, making for great outdoor sweaters. A common example of a
single ply yarn is lopi. Modern knitters will find many yarn weights now
available in singles. You can check out my Ravelry search here, it includes yarns categorized from lace to super bulky.

About Me

email contact robinknits(AT)gmail(dot)com
I've been knitting my whole life. I don't even remember learning. I started making garments for myself in my teens and then explored sewing, tailoring and millinery. I want to teach knitters about fit and flattery and turn them into fashion stars!
On my blog you will find lots of interviews with knitting industry professionals, how to tutorials and a variety of posts about what's going on in the knitting world.
I love to come out and speak at shops and guilds. Here's what the Downtown Knit collective said after one of my talks:
“Robin Hunter’s inspiring talk, “The Barbie Factor,” left everyone in a feel-good mood at the conclusion of the May meeting. Heads were nodding in agreement all around ... as she tackled a multi-faced problem faced by many knitters—why don’t we knit for ourselves? She touched on many topics including fashion, body image, media and how it all relates back to our knitting.”
You can see my patterns on http://www.patternfish.com/des/robin_hunter and you can find me on Ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/people/knittingrobin
My YouTube channel is here:http://www.youtube.com/user/robinknits?feature=mhee